Clearly Tim Hortons was listening, as the company made a ten minute presentation about animal welfare at the May 10th meeting, and fielded several shareholder statements encouraging the company to move beyond the commitments it made on May 4th.

After the AGM, CEO Paul House was quoted as saying “With the egg situation, it is an increased cost factor, but it’s a cost factor we can manage” stating they will work with their suppliers. “These issues are not going to go away”, he said.

He's right about that! With your help, we will continue to push for suitable CAGE-FREE housing for hens, NOT 'enriched' cages, and a clear timeline for phasing out both battery cages for egg-laying hens and gestation crates for sows from their supply chain.

Although the shareholder meeting has passed for this year, we will continue to collect more signatures to show Tim Hortons that farm animal welfare continues to be important issue to consumers everywhere. We will keep monitoring their progress, holding the company accountable, and hopefully present even more signatures next year!

__

Tim Hortons, Canada's largest restaurant chain, and a rapidly growing company in the United States, currently serves eggs and pork from farms that use battery cages and gestation crates -- extreme practices that treat chickens and pigs like machines -- and that other major fast food chains have already committed to abandon!

Battery caged chickens are so confined that they can't even spread their wings. Sows trapped in gestation crates, metal stalls so small they are unable to move, are continuously impregnated. And when chickens can no longer lay eggs or sows can't give birth, they're swiftly killed.

The good news is that several fast food chains like Wendy's have already taken positive steps to phase out cages and crates. Just last month, Burger King announced that all its eggs will come from cage free chickens by 2017, and they are working on phasing out pork from sows kept in gestation crates.

After so many of their competitors have committed to doing the right thing, I can't believe Tim Hortons is still letting animals needlessly suffer. In several US states and across Europe, the use of battery cages and gestation crates has been banned.

Join me and the Vancouver Humane Society and sign this petition today!